I'm an American, full of pride for President-elect Donald Trump and his big, big, 10% stock market rally since the election!

Now imagine my pride if that had actually happened. Or if the 5% gain in the S&P 500 SPX, -0.46% that has happened, or even the 8% climb in the narrower Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.29% — which has failed for the 15th day to gain the last 250 points needed to cross 20,000 — were based on fundamentals.

Instead, this recent is rooted mostly in corruption now, and the promise of corruption later. And a rally built on corruption is bound to fail. ...

...

The market is usually one of many things that makes you, to borrow Trump's Twitter wording, hopeful to be American, because it's typically a monument to the creativity of our Elon Musks and Steve Jobses. Right now, something else is happening. It's ugly, it's cynical — and it won't work. ..."